Random postings on politics, economics, history and anything else that is not technology (for that, see my other blog). My postings on non-technology subjects will be necessarily coloured by my background in technology, so apologies for that. But then, that's the unique perspective it gives me :-).

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Four Fallacies That Fail Feminism

I don't call myself a feminist because I consider myself a humanist, and I believe humanism subsumes feminism. But obviously, I have no quarrel with feminists because I've found that the issues that outrage them outrage me as well, and for the same reasons. However, I've observed that some of the women who call themselves feminists (feminists predominantly tend to be women) sometimes conduct their arguments in a manner that doesn't serve the cause very well.

Let me list four of the ways in which poor arguments can undermine the feminist cause:

1. Women-are-superior smugness:

I'm not referring to the light-hearted jokes about incompetent husbands that do the email rounds from time to time. I enjoy them as much as the next person. What concerns me is when the same attitudes are expressed in all seriousness. A recent example is a blog post on the LeanIn theme, which goes:

This is one of the many points in my life where I was grateful to be a woman: My natural ability to handle ambiguity enabled me to tackle the challenges of setting up something from scratch [...]

Seriously? Has the ability to handle ambiguity been scientifically proven to be a gender-linked trait? If not, isn't this opinion just sexism? With what face can we then argue with men who claim to be naturally more logical than women, better leaders or better drivers?

We don't want to topple the Patriarchy just to replace it with a Matriarchy. What we should be fighting for is an egalitarian society where everyone is treated as an individual, with no gender-ascribed qualities that either elevate or oppress them.

2. Sisterhood-loyalty trumping fairness:

You read a news item about a woman who has accused a man of some misbehaviour. No independent evidence has yet emerged in the case. It is literally a case of "He said, she said". You often find that the comments section is filled with conclusions based on opinion alone, - not just the predictable patriarchal view that the woman is either lying or must have provoked the misbehaviour, but the equally unjustified calls from women for stringent punishment of the man.

Whatever happened to the principle of "innocent until proven guilty"? I am not making an argument in defence of men here. This is an argument in defence of fairness. If we don't know the facts of a case, we must withhold judgement. The most that we can demand is for an investigation to be conducted with due seriousness.

It becomes hard to argue against sexist comments directed at a woman when there are equally unsubstantiated conclusions being drawn about a man. We need to value fairness and justice above all. Once again, it's about individuals. Innocent individuals shouldn't fall victim to gender stereotypes in a gender war.

3. Friendly fire, or Those-not-with-us-are-against-us:

Human society isn't one of perfect clones, and there can be honest differences of opinion even among similar-minded people. We need to tolerate minor differences, or at least address them gently, when our overall viewpoints tend to agree. Insistence on adherence to a purist line, with immediate, public and merciless excoriation of those who stray from that line, risks turning a noble ideal into little more than an authoritarian ideological cult. This is a constant lurking danger in online battlegrounds where sympathetic men often wade in in support of a feminist cause.

What I would say to such people is, if you feel someone's views are on the right track but not quite where you think they should be, nudge them along rather than attack them. Vituperative attacks against people supporting your cause constitute bad tactics, for two reasons. One is that such infighting is a distraction from the larger argument that is being made by both. The second and more serious reason is that it causes the target of your attack to lose face with his gender compatriots (against whom he had courageously argued), and considerably reduces his willingness to wade into battle for similar causes in future.

Moral: Don't shoot your allies. You need them.

4. Callousness towards other forms of discrimination:

Some feminists seem to believe that gender-based discrimination is the only one that counts, or at least that it is more serious than other forms of discrimination. Let's call this meta-attitude "genderism". In my opinion, the term "feminism" is itself evidence of genderism. Why aren't we all "humanists" instead? Don't we also oppose other forms of discrimination, such as racism, homophobia, casteism, ageism, religious prejudice, etc.? Who is to say these other forms of discrimination are milder or less pernicious? Just ask someone who has been a victim.

The greatest disservice to feminism comes from feminists who are racist, casteist, homophobic or religious bigots, and there are plenty of these around. It's breathtaking hypocrisy to oppose one kind of discrimination while practising another kind.

There really is no choice for feminists but to be humanists as well, and to be seen as such, otherwise their support of the necessarily narrower cause of gender equality can and will rightly be questioned. As a matter of topical interest, it is heartening to see that feminists are by and large supporting the marriage equality cause, but this support is by no means unanimous.

In sum, these are the four attitudes that I believe hobble the fight for gender equality.